A Time Lady In Atlantis
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Set after Legacy of the Daleks, a traumatised Susan arrives in Atlantis inside the Master's TARDIS, and has to deal with the unpleasantness of the Tau'ri. Features Barbara and Ian
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer - I don't own either Stargate or its spin offs, or Doctor Who. This is just a little one shot of an idea I've had knocking around for a long time.

 **A Time Lady in Atlantis.**

* * *

Susan woke up feeling groggy, her senses all over the place as she tried to get some idea of where and when she was. Whatever the weapon that was used on her was, it had a truly disorientating effect on its victims. The first thing she noticed was the pain and the stiff feeling in her limbs - she was terrified she had regenerated for a second, knowing tight and stiff muscles and joints were the results of a regeneration as the body adjusted to the newly changed DNA and the resultant body transformation, but was quickly calmed down when she realised she hadn't lost any regeneration energy at all, her grogginess was simply down to coming out of a healing coma brought on by stress, and her hands and body felt the same as they had when she had first entered the Master's TARDIS. Susan made a grimace and ground her teeth at the thought of the Master, wondering for a moment whether he was still alive on Tersurus in the aftermath of the blast when she'd destroyed the Dalek matter transmuter - really, what had he been thinking holding that thing? Any one else would have seen sense - or at least she hoped so - but not the Master, who's self obsessed nature made him cling to the transmuter like a mother holding a newborn baby. Still she had been more merciful given the circumstances, but even she would have preferred a different way of dealing with the evil Time Lord.

Shaking her head which quickly turned out to be a mistake since it made her head swim more than before, Susan closed her eyes and used the training she had picked up at the academy on Gallifrey to check her body over. She could easily have done it with her eyes open of course, but closing her eyes made it easier for her to concentrate. Hmm, well the healing coma her body had instantly pushed her into after the human soldiers she had briefly glimpsed on leaving her new TARDIS had healed her already stressed out and injured body, she had caught a lick of the energy blast when she had turned the Master's own TCE against the trasnmuter, and the blast had sent out some radiation. It was harmless to her in the long run with her stronger Gallifreyan metabolism, though she needed time to cope with it whilst healing her body afterward. Keeping her eyes shut Susan thought back about the events of the last few days. She had gotten a call from the Peace Officers to check out the break in of another Dalek artifact, and what had started out as a boringly mundane and routine task had become a nightmare.

The moment she had turned up at the artifact the minute she realised the scope of what was happening and had immediately tried to call for help. There had been no way she could have solved the problem by herself and she didn't know why the artifact was broken into in the first place, but she was caught and held prisoner before managing to escape and get inside the Dalek base which the Daleks had littered across the planet during their invasion, and things became worse when she learnt that the stupid humans were pumping power into the base. Susan and her associates in the force she had joined in the aftermath of the Dalek occupation had encountered dozens of groups who had decided to ignore their common sense and try to break in, but the humans had been doing it for some time, with the help of a member of her own race, and gave the base enough power to start a Dalek production line. It didn't take long for the Daleks to overpower the humans, but they left survivors to be turned into Robomen - humans turned into primitive cyborgs and controlled by the Daleks via a metal helmet. Susan had been interrogated and left alive and put into a cell like the one she had spent Rassilon knew how many days inside during their first encounter with the Daleks. But she had managed to escape again after getting access to the door control panel. Susan made a face. And then she had encountered the Master. She had known another member of her race had been behind the break in, and it was all because of a matter transmuter.

Despite her personal loathing for the Daleks after seeing the way they slaughtered Thals on Skaro, threatened to flood their homeworld's recovering atmosphere with radiation just to give themselves the power to leave their city and wipe the Thals out at the same time, and the ruins they had transformed cities like London, and killed without mercy Susan had to admit she admired their ingenuity. They had seen a real issue with their current methods. The Dalek empire was expanding and they needed vast amounts of chemicals and metals for their war effort and their production lines, but finding planets with the right minerals wasn't always a guarantee so they developed the matter transmuter. For centuries humans had tried to find the perfect formula which could change metals like gold into lead, or vice versa. The Daleks had found a more simple solution, one humans themselves would discover when they invented the right technology but had dreamt of solving for centuries. Susan didn't know how long the Daleks had been a space faring empire since her first meeting with them on Skaro, but she imagined they must have either experimented with matter technology or simply stole the principles from another race. To the victor goes the spoils, she thought. Nothing changes out there in the universe. The Master had managed to overpower her before she destroyed the transmuter though she had had no idea what it was until he quizzed her on the Daleks. It was such a simpler weapon than something complicated than a planet cracker which could destroy planets the way a person could rap a boiled egg.

Her breath hitched when she remembered how the Master had gotten her back to his TARDIS as a hostage to use against her grandfather - she didn't know why he had decided to return to her after 30 years, but she was grateful, but that didn't mean she was not hurt since she could tell it had been much longer for him than for her but then again he had never really taken personal feelings of family members into real consideration. He had regenerated when he had caught up with her and the Master. The sight of him and her husband had been a relief despite the feelings she had towards them both, and she had vaguely recognised the girl with them, but had pushed it out her mind when the Master fired at them, and she had seen David drop and her grandfather take a hit. But she could not do anything because the Master had forced her back inside the TARDIS.

She had been taken to Tersurus, a boring little planet with little in the way of life though what the Master planned to do there she could take a guess. He had wanted somewhere quiet and out of the way to work on adapting the matter trasmuter with the controls of his TARDIS. But he had made a mistake in letting her get too close to the telepathic circuits, and by the time she told him about her real heritage it was too late. She used the circuits to blast him with a wave of pure hatred and anger, took his mind and crushed it. Weakened, the Master realised who she was, hinting that her grandfather had met other Time Lords after leaving her behind, but she stopped him by forcing him out of the TARDIS with his own weapon. The Master tried to run with the Dalek matter transmuter, but his mind and body were still shaken by the telepathic blast, and he collapsed in his weakened state. She had given him the chance to drop the transmuter but he hadn't taken it, and considering what she had seen him do on Earth she felt no pity and very little compassion for him when she fired the TCE at the transmuter. The energies of the two weapons had caused a chain reaction that resulted in a blast of energy and radiation - she had caught a lick of it but not as much as the Master had - and she had known she would need to rest to deal with the potential damage to her body, but with the Master's TARDIS it would be a simple matter to cure. She had returned to the Master's - now her - TARDIS and realised with horror she had turned off the defence system, leaving it open to a trace from Gallifrey.

Susan and the Doctor had left Gallifrey under strenuous circumstances and if they caught her they would punish her. Severely. Reactivating the TARDIS after drawing upon the telepathic knowledge taken from the Master, she had reactivated the defence grid and left the planet, setting the controls to random to shake the Time Lords off. Susan had been in the process of healing herself without putting herself into a healing coma when the TARDIS materialised rather more quickly than she expected, and without thinking she left the TARDIS and was shot by stun weapons. She had caught glimpses of humans wearing combat uniforms and holding alien weapons, and before she fell unconscious as her overwhelmed body shut down and forced her into the healing coma she had hoped to avoid.

Now she was awake and feeling healthy again, Susan looked around the room she was in. It was clearly a sickbay of some kind, with typical hospital beds and medical instruments littered everywhere. Susan frowned when she noticed that the level of technology and science around her was more advanced and sophisticated compared to the primitive technology that littered the room. She sniffed the air to get a sense of time and realised she had travelled back through time, back to the 21st century and before the Dalek occupation of Earth, but it was the architecture of the place which caught her attention. "Oh great," she muttered under her breath when she recognised the familiar architecture as that belonging to the Alterans, Lanteans, Ancients or whatever they called themselves at different moments during their long history. She decided to simply call them Ancients, it was less complicated that way.

She rubbed her temples as she tried to figure out what she could do before things became worse for her. She had good reason to be worried after the Time Lords' last meeting with the Ancients. The Time Lords had never really had time for the Ancients - their final ascension and the story surrounding it was so dull and tedious that even many Time Lords found nothing interesting in it. The Ancients' obsession with ascension had started out early when the society had shown so much potential after launching that ship of their's - what was it called again? Oh yeah, the Destiny - to explore beyond the Milky and Pegasus galaxies to collect pieces of what the Ancients considered to be a message in the Cosmic radio background. The Ancients had realised there was something artificial there and they were right, but the Time Lords already knew it was a result of the creation of the Time Vortex and their subsequent use of the Web of Time in order to enforce the laws of time on the universe that had lead to the CRB being subtly altered. But the Time Lords had been impressed by what the Ancients had discovered, many of her people had hoped it would mean encountering and actually interacting with a species with a tech base that was rising close to their own. Too bad they were in for a disappointment. The Ancients gave up on the project and focused instead on ascension.

To say the Time Lords were disappointed was an understatement. Those were the days when the Time Lords were playing god with the Minyans before seeing the price was too high. Back then the Time Lords were eager to make contact with other races and exchange knowledge, something which had rapidly become stale over the centuries when Time Lord civilisation had sent out so many TARDISes on missions of exploration that her people eventually gained the knowledge they had been looking for and gave up. Susan could say it was because of Minyos's destruction but she knew it was not true - the Time Lords had simply travelled everywhere and quickly decided they didn't need to explore anymore. It was centuries before the Time Lords encountered the Ancients despite being aware of them for years. By then the Minyans had made their point clear and the Time Lords had withdrawn from making relations with the other races, and when the Ancients tried to set up one of their stargates on a planet close to Gallifrey they found the Time Lords. The Time Lords were still reeling from their actions which led to the destruction of Minyos and they were not impressed by the Ancient's attempt to seed a stargate on one of the outlying worlds close to Gallifrey.

The Time Lords had removed the gate and sent it and the ship home, with a message firmly and politely asking the Ancients to not plant any stargates near Gallifrey again or indeed in Gallifrey's home galaxy. The Time Lords hinted in their message the Ancients were close to the Gallifreyan star system, a very risky thing to do but despite their power and knowledge the Ancients would hardly be able to scratch the first transduction barrier surrounding Gallifrey, so the Time Lords were safe, but that didn't stop the Ancients. You would think the Ancients would learn from their mistakes with the Wraith and the Ori, but no they had to provoke another powerful species, only this one made the Wrath, Goa'uld and the Ori look like bullying children in a playground. It was just fortunate the Ancients had encountered a powerful race who had lots of patience compared to their other enemies. Susan remembered the history lesson, basically an hour long talk about the Ancients and how they'd sent a small fleet of ships to open a diplomatic dialogue with the Time Lords backed by their powerful ships despite knowing nothing of the type of technology the Time Lords had. The Ancients had been regressed in age and sent back to a point in time 3 hours after they'd left. A Time Lord had appeared to the Ancients, warning them of their power and a warning that if the Ancients ever interfered in Time Lord affairs then all the grief they'd suffered over the aeons would be a slap on the wrist by comparison.

The Time Lord representative had left but the Ancients had scanned his DNA and programmed their ships and bases with the data. Susan couldn't work out what their end hope was but she didn't want to, she just knew that as soon as this place's AI learnt she was here there would be trouble. The AI was a very basic intelligence, the Ancients had learnt their lesson with their Asuran creations, but it wasn't stupid and it would learn about her if given enough clues.

Susan lay back down. She was still exhausted and needed to rest. She was tempted to simply ignore her fatigue and try to return to the TARDIS and get away, but she didn't know where in the city she was and she didn't want to be hit by those weapons again.

When she woke up again she heard a voice with an American accent. "She's awake, get Colonel Carter here now." Susan focused on the woman who was suddenly there in her line of sight. She was fairly short like long brown hair and a somewhat insecure expression on her face. Susan liked her immediately."Are you alright?" she asked in concern. "Those idiots that shot you should be shot themselves," she added angrily. "Honestly couldn't they tell you weren't Wraith-"

"Wraith, there are Wraith here?!" Susan asked in disbelief at the mention of the vampiric species. She wasn't surprised. The Wraith did hibernate for long periods of time, but life was a living hell when they did emerge. Being an advanced race in the Pegasus galaxy was a living hell because of the Wraith, but Susan's knowledge of their history was patchy so she didn't know exactly where they were in the galactic timeline. "Well, yeah, they're just not here," the woman said, looking back at her uncertainly like knowledge of the existence of the Wraith's existence should be common knowledge. "How do you know them?"

Susan ignored the question and asked one of her own. "Why are you here? How did you find this place?" she asked waving a hand around the sickbay. The woman gave her a potted history of what she called the Stargate program and the events leading up to the discovery and reactivation of the Ancient cityship called Atlantis - Susan mentally asked herself how these people would react if they learnt that humans on Earth had become inspired by the name of Atlantis and named a whole continent before it was destroyed in a volcanic eruption but paid attention to the story - and while she frowned at the knowledge humans had access to technology they shouldn't have for centuries, she had to admire them. Too bad she didn't admire their common sense. Susan's opinion of humanity was mixed - she had loved Coal Hill school before Ian and Barbara became too curious for their own good, but she had adapted far more quickly than her grandfather, but that was simply because she had known Barbara and Ian before.

But she had seen the cruelty humans were capable of - she doubted she would ever forget the memories she had of the Aztecs, the Tribe of Gum, those three astronauts who had been behind the poisoning of the Sensorites, and she definitely would never forget the way Earth and London were split into little empires by power mad fools in the aftermath of the Dalek invasion.

Why? Their entire planet had been devastated, their people enslaved and killed, or turned into Robomen by the Daleks, and they'd almost been wiped out by the Dalek plan to remove the molten core and replace it with an engine, why couldn't they work together, exchange resources and help one another? But no, humanity's stupidity shone through again.

The doctor whose name was Jennifer Keller still talked about their arrival into the Pegasus galaxy and their conflict with the Wraith. Somehow Susan wasn't surprised by their actions - it was bad enough they had foolishly confined fending off the frequent encounters/conflicts with the parasitic Goa'uld to just a few countries without bothering to alert the entire planet their way of life could somehow come to an end if things went really badly. Susan had almost laughed herself to death when she'd asked Keller why in the name of sanity they thought it would be a good idea, and she said it was to prevent a panic. There were times Susan asked herself why she even bothered with humans, and this was one of them. She had of course known about the humans use of the Stargate and had known of the UN's decision to simply bury all knowledge of the wretched thing, but she wanted to hear the story from the human's point of view. She wasn't surprised by what she'd found out. But she hadn't known about the city-ship. "Let me see if I've got this straight. You people unearth and crack how the stargate works, but instead of telling your own people, you decide to bury it under the pretext of stopping a panic, and yet when System Lords arrive at Earth to enslave your population you still don't tell anyone? That's a bit thick, even now, right?"

Jennifer Keller looked taken aback. "Er, what do you mean? I mean, yeah I get what you're saying, but when you see what the Wraith can do-"

"Dr. Keller," Susan interrupted softly, "I know what you're saying, and I agree with you about the Wraith, but the people of Earth had the right to know what was happening. There's always strength in numbers."

Susan had planned on saying more when she herself was interrupted by another woman coming into the sickbay. She was an attractive blonde woman and she was followed by another woman, only she was dark skinned, and two men. One was a tall man clad in a black uniform with black hair. The second man was a short, fairly squat man with an arrogant expression that seemed ingrained into his face. By their expressions she knew they'd heard what she'd been saying to Keller but Susan didn't care, she wasn't going to back down from her opinion. But the blonde woman quietly took a seat near her, and Susan didn't like the look on her face. The blonde woman had the bearing of a soldier, her whole posture screamed military like the man in black behind her, but she had something else in her eyes and Susan lightly scanned her mind and was immediately impressed that she was looking at a scientist.

"I'm Colonel Samantha Carter. I'm in charge of the Atlantis expedition," she gestured to the man in black, "this is Colonel John Shepherd, and this," she pointed at the dark skinned woman, "is Teyla of the Athosian people. And this is Dr. Rodney Mckay, head of the science department. Before we talk about the SGC's policy of secrecy, I'd just like to ask you why the city computer is going crazy, and what exactly a Time Lord is."

Susan shrugged her shoulders and sighed wearily. "You scanned me," she said simply. She wasn't surprised by their actions - the fact she had appeared in a TARDIS would probably surprise anybody and considering they were fighting the Wraith, Susan couldn't blame them for being paranoid and suspicious. But that didn't mean she was happy.

"Yeah. But I'm sorry for what those guards did, but I'm not sorry for their reactions - they're simply doing their jobs whilst we worry about what could potentially be our last days alive." Carter paused to take a breath. "We read the file of the Ancient's first contact with your people. Can you please tell us more?"

Susan was silent for a moment while she went over what Carter wanted. She'd already said they'd read a file detailing what had happened between the Ancients and the Time Lords centuries ago, so why did they need to know more? Was Carter worried about her people for some reason? She imagined there was some rationale for that. "What do you want to know?"

Carter opened her mouth to speak, but McKay got there before she did, ignoring the poisonous glare he got in turn. "Did your people really turn the Ancient's into kids?"

Susan nodded in confirmation. "They did. My people had been interested in the Ancients for a while before they began their tedious quest for ascension; you might think it's amazing, but truthfully there's nothing special about being ascended - you might have moved to a different plane of the universe, but that's it - you can't do much than a little basic hocus pocus. When the Ancients met my people, they encountered a Time Lord race who had simply become tired and bored. If the Ancients had bothered to notice our technology when we removed the stargate in the first place, another demonstration would not have been needed, but that's typical of the Ancients."

"What do you mean?"

"The Ancients never learnt from their mistakes. Not even once. They seeded a planet with human life, and what happened? A parasitic bug fed on them and the bug evolved, creating the Wraith. Then they created the Asurans' and instead of redesigning them and using them as a nanite plague, the Ancients just abandoned them and failed to clean up their mess. Plus they didn't bother to truly understand what the Goa'uld were when they returned to the Milky way and by the time they did it was too late."

Susan realised she had said too much. The members of the Atlantis expedition exchanged worried and tense glances with each other. Shepherd looked at her suspiciously. "How do you know about all that?"

Susan shrugged. "It's not exactly a secret. There are many races out there beyond your local group who know of the Ancients, know what they were like. But in the case of the Time Lords…My people gather knowledge. We learnt about the Ancients at the Academy, though the lessons weren't very long considering how dull and tedious their final fate of ascension was."

Carter blinked in surprise. "Strange. I have known people who have ascended and descended, and they didn't describe it as boring. Though Daniel did resent the Ancients for not helping others."

"Nothing really new there," Susan said, filing the knowledge the woman in front of her had a friend who had once been ascended and had returned. That bit about resenting the Ancients brought up a scenario in Susan's mind that told her a great deal despite the limited contact between the Time Lords and the Ancients. "The Ancients only formed that alliance with the Nox, Furlings and the Asgard because they wanted them to do the dirty work because there were so few of them, but even at the height of their powers they only fought the Wraith because they simply didn't want to see their great work washed away because the Wraith were hungry for new sources of food."

"But we saw a hologram made by the Ancients when we first arrived here in the city," McKay interrupted, his wilted expression telling her that he had the Ancients on a pedestal that was vanishing with each sentence that came out of her mouth. "It said they fought the Wraith-" his dawning look of comprehension and sad nod telling Susan he was seeing her point.

"They did, and they did it badly," Susan said softly. She didn't really want these people to lose what faith they had, but putting a society on some pedestal they didn't really deserve to be placed on was asking for disappointment. "The Ancients did fight the Wraith, yes. But they left so much of their technology behind, carelessly thinking the Wraith would never be able to know what it does. If they hadn't done that, or found a way to slow down the damage, change their tactics then the war could have been fought differently."

Teyla's expression reminded Susan of the times whenever she had argued with her teachers at Coal Hill school - okay, so her knowledge of science and technology was immensely superior to their's to the point where would correct them, but Susan got the impression Teyla wanted to defend the Ancients but knew it was pointless, and it was clear she herself had some issues with them. Susan knew this woman was a local, not like Carter and the others.

At last Teyla spoke, "When we encountered a group of the Ancestors, there was hope they would save us from the Wraith, but they didn't do anything for anyone."

She spoke as though she was trying to exorcise any respect she had for the Ancients out of her mind, judging from her expression it wasn't something she wanted. But it was what she had said that surprised Susan. "Ancients? You met some of the Ancients? How, they ascended and seem happy to watch as the universe ages a nanosecond at a time."

"Oh, it was just one of their ships. It was damaged, and to cut a long story short they kicked us out of the city and sent us packing," Shepherd said, "they were overconfident when the Replicators came, sure they could stop them like they had before, but they were killed."

"Replicators?"

"Asurans."

"Ah," Susan understood, not really caring why these people called the Asurans replicators.

Shepherd wanted to get the conversation back on track. "Look, are you gonna be a problem for us? It's just this city is going crazy about having a Time Lord, whatever that is, and we have enough on our minds."

Susan shrugged. "I won't be a problem unless you're a problem to me. I don't want to be here anyway. Just let me back to my TARDIS, and I'll leave"

"Your what?"

Susan was unsurprised by the question and answered it readily. "My TARDIS. My ship. What I stepped out of before I was shot. You let me go, and I'll leave. All I want right now is to be left alone to grieve for the death of my husband."

"That might not so easy," Carter said, though it was clear she was curious about what the TARDIS was and what it could do. "I'm afraid the International Oversight Agency is aware of your presence. It got out in a report. They want you to return to Earth."

Returning to Earth so soon after David's murder and witnessing the Daleks returning was the last thing Susan wanted to do even if the Earth they were talking about hadn't yet been touched by the Dalek invasion. She could tell that this agency was bad news, if the scowls on the faces of virtually everyone present was anything to go by.

"What if I don't want to go to Earth?" Susan asked, putting on the same naive facade that had served her so well in the past, but she wasn't sure if it would work this time. It didn't if the looks Carter, Keller and Teyla sent back at her.

"I'm afraid a member of the Agency is already here. He has spent the last few hours since this morning inspecting the city and making a jackass of himself as he tries to work out what all of our projects are about," Carter said, "plus he is trying to get some of our scientists into your….TARDIS."

Susan wasn't surprised by the scientists actions - they were obviously a bunch who wanted to learn about everything, but it would never work. She had made a few adjustments to the TARDIS before arriving at Atlantis, and one of them was turning on the metabolism detector, so even if they had the correct key the lock wouldn't turn, and the TARDIS would refuse them access.

* * *

Late at night the only people up were scientists busy trying to catch up on the work they had been doing before the IOA sent their representative who forced them to waste their time trying to get inside the alien ship which had appeared. But in the sickbay Susan was still awake. She didn't need much in the way of sleep. Instead she was sitting cross legged in a meditative position and concentrating. The rest of the meeting didn't go too badly in Susan's mind as she sat up in bed, Keller had been given the unspoken order to keep an eye on her by Carter. While she understood their motives - their interest in her and her people was as clear and as transparent as all those questions they kept asking her - Susan just wanted to leave. Meeting that…..person from the IOA had not helped, either. The Atlantis expedition didn't have good relations with the organisation, not that Susan really cared since she doubted it would have made any real difference, and they had warned her about them. Their warnings didn't do the man justice, Susan had met her fair share of greedy and disgusting people in her time, but she felt this man took the proverbial cake. You could tell just by looking at him dressed in that smart suit that he was only interested in his own salary and furthering his own power. His greed was palpable and the way he spoke to Susan was disgusting. He had spoken to her as though she was a stupid, retarded child. He spoke slowly and deliberately and even mimed certain things. Susan had been insulted quite a few times in her life, and she remembered the teasing she had gotten from some of the students she had shyly befriended in Shoreditch when her grandfather and her had landed there, but those students had only teased her without meaning to hurt her. But the guy from the IOA clearly believed anyone not born on Earth was clearly stupid. It was insulting, a higher evolutionary humiliated by a member of a lesser species. She had said, "I can-+ solve equations your precious Einstein would find difficult, you stupid little monkey." And then he had been the humiliated one.

Susan had heard that he had arrived soon after her arrival and he had demanded she be moved straight back to Earth, her TARDIS included, and he had foolishly demanded the scientists investigating the city to try and get inside. Susan wasn't worried about that - the Ancients and the Asgard may have been technologically advanced compared to these primitives, but the TARDIS was still impenetrable, beyond their understanding. The IOA representative - she didn't bother learning his name - had repeatedly asked her questions about her species, but Susan knew if she did return with him to Earth it wouldn't be the end of it.

No. She would meet others, of that she had no doubt, if she managed to get out. She had a plan. It was late at night and Susan was concentrating on her TARDIS key. She had asked for her possessions to be returned to her before seeing the man from the IOA and the humans had given them to her without being too concerned. She had nothing provocative enough for them to be worried, it was typical of human thinking - just her Peace officer's pin, her new TARDIS key and a photograph showing her and David in the early years of their marriage before the problems concerning Time Lord biology came into things. Susan had stared for a while at the photograph, trying to stop the emotional turmoil she felt just by looking at the picture from overwhelming her before getting to work. She then spent over half an hour focusing on the right Block transfer computations to find the timeship. It wasn't too hard though it was a little tricky at first since she and the TARDIS were still bonding- she used her own artron energy to locate the artron energy of the TARDIS. The TT capsule wasn't far away from where she was. How intelligent of the humans to put the ship in a laboratory not far from its user, but they had no idea she could find it, and using the key she opened a very basic connection into the TARDIS's protyon unit to get a visual image and feel of where the capsule was. It wasn't perfect even with the block transfer computation she used, but then the key wasn't designed for this. In theory what she was doing was impossible, but Susan had learnt impossibility didn't mean it couldn't happen unless you found another route.

The connection to the protyon unit wasn't perfect, but it did the job though it was limited. Susan saw the laboratory in her mind but she retracted her mind after seeing it through the scanner of the TARDIS. She used the scanner and the general knowledge mapping matrix it came with to find the right routes to the lab. Once she had done that and found good routes, she used her new TARDIS to scan the city for any traps the Ancients might have left and came up disappointed. Even Time Lord technology couldn't predict things like traps in a system as complex as the one the city-ship used, but Susan wasn't surprised - the Ancients were good at computer programming. These humans could spend the next 40 years studying this city and barely make any headway in truly understanding how it worked. They were stupid if they thought they could in a short amount of time. Many Ancient ships and outposts were fitted with computers with so many overlapping layers of code and even a TARDIS couldn't decipher all of it in only a minute and Susan didn't have too much time anyway to bother. She sighed wearily in disappointment, knowing she would have to risk it. Hopefully she could reach the lab the TARDIS was in without being noticed or without whatever nasty traps the Ancients left behind.

After getting all of her possessions into her pockets, Susan got out of her bed and walked towards the door, which was unsurprisingly locked. It took Susan a minute of work on the door, using her Time Lady brain to open the lock and preventing the computer from registering it. She didn't know if the computer of the city had been, well content, in a word of where she had been so it had not seen the logic in trapping her in the sickbay, but she was also unsure of what could be outside. Aware the IOA man might have demanded for a guard posted outside in case she went outside, Susan prepared to defend herself and opened the door, deliberately slowing time down with her Rassilon Imprimature to give herself an edge. By the time the surprised guard realised she was there, Susan had known he had been there for a while already, and she stopped her time warping trick and lashed out with a punch to his kidneys. The soldier was so taken aback he didn't have time to prepare himself and so he dropped like a stone with a grunt. Appalled by the necessity, Susan bent down and examined the guard, taking out his handgun and ignoring his machine gun.

Susan had not gone more than 30 feet from the sickbay when an alarm sounded. Susan stopped but kept walking, using her newfound knowledge of the layout of Atlantis to choose random routes to fool the computer and those in Atlantis's control tower from realising where she was going. She knew the humans would be watching out for her now the computer knew she had left the lab - she hadn't realised that Ancient computers were that sophisticated and realised the computer would have been looking out regardless. Susan shook her head, knowing she would need to be extra careful now. After hurrying down a few corridors, listening carefully for approaching footsteps she triggered the first trap. Susan ran straight into a forcefield which had just sprung up. Annoyed, she turned around and ran into another one.

Closing her eyes and concentrating hard, Susan again used her Rassilon Imprimature to affect time around her body and she simply stepped through. She gazed angrily at the walls. "You'll have to do better than that," she snarled despite asking herself if the city was intelligent enough to take a wild guess at what she'd just done and came up with a better tactic. The Ancients had constructed their cities to hold multiple laboratories and computer rooms, and one was very close to the laboratory her TARDIS was in. The computer room didn't try to trap her as she'd expected when she got through the door, much to her surprise. Clearly the Ancients overconfidently believed their traps could hold a Time Lord and their computers wouldn't be attacked. She headed to one of the computers and gained access almost immediately, using her Rassilon Imprimature in much the same way the Ancient gene worked, though her symbiotic nuclei was far superior, and accessed the computers with no trouble. She didn't have time to do no more than a cursory examination of the basic traps. The Ancients had designed the computer program to trap a Time Lord after taking a small scan of DNA, Susan knew that, but looking at this almost made her marvel at their ingenuity. None of this work was that of a desperate bunch, no this was the work of a group of people who had spent time and energy planning things out carefully. She tried to find a way of shutting the traps down, but found that the program was laced like a single thread of golden threads and interacted with other gold threads. Susan was disgruntled after a few minutes of trying to shut down the traps. The Ancients may have been boring and a little self righteous towards the end, but they weren't stupid - they'd known or guessed that a species as old as their own would probably find a way to avoid the worst of the traps and try to shut it down. But the computer coding was so interconnected with the other computer systems of the city that she was worried that if she tried to unravel it then the whole city could be destroyed. It wouldn't take much with the Zero Point power modules the Ancients depended on for energy. Granted, they weren't as powerful nor as perpetual as the Eye of Harmony, but they were powerful enough to cause a very big bang. Susan left the computer room 10 minutes later, leaving a screen with a ticking clock. After dodging another two traps Susan used the same time trick she had used before to dodge them, cursing the Ancients for making traps designed to capture members of her race if they stepped foot inside the city, and kept going. She broke inside a maintenance passage and went through with another part of her plan. This passage passed very close to the laboratory her TARDIS was inside. Susan knew that as soon as the humans realised she had escaped from the sickbay they would be bound to ambush her, stop her reaching the TARDIS, this was just a shortcut.

The laboratory was empty when she got there and Susan smiled when she saw her TARDIS. She had just reached it and was fishing the key out of her pocket when the door opened and she found herself faced with guns. Colonel Carter was in the lead with McKay and Shepherd. The IOA man was there with them. Susan opened the door to the TARDIS. The IOA man shouted, "Stay where you are!"

Susan nimbly jumped inside the TARDIS and stood in the doorway. "Come out of there!"

"Why should I?" Susan asked rhetorically. "How come none of you were in the lab when I got here, unless you had problems getting here?"

"What did you do?"

Susan smiled. "A simple computer virus," she said before adding quickly, "don't worry. Its not harmful; the computer is already studying the virus and find a way around it. The virus will probably be dealt with in another hour."

McKay and Carter looked impressed. "The computer….. Can clear a virus out that quickly?" McKay looked around the lab as though he'd never seen it before. Susan chuckled. "Yes, Dr. McKay. Unlike your computers at this present time, the Ancients designed theirs to be self renewing. My virus might have caused trouble, but it was minor compared to what I could have written into the network. Just be grateful I didn't write a program that would have caused your power modules to explode."

The man from the IOA - why hadn't he simply given her his name? - looked vindicated and puffed out his chest. It didn't look flattering. "You heard her, she's threatened us-"

Carter glared at him in frustration. "No, she didn't, and believe me - I've met aliens who could've rewritten that computer without breaking a sweat, then we'd have been burying the dead."

Susan's voice cracked like a whip. "I was stating a fact, and besides why wouldn't I be justified? You stopped me from leaving, keeping me confined to a sickbay, treated me as though I was beneath you when I just wanted to leave."

McKay shook his head, there was a look of disgust on his face as he glared at the soldiers. "How - how did you get the computer virus to work? Those systems, some of them need the Ancient gene-"

Susan wasn't going to tell them about her people's culture. If she was captured by them they might find a way to stop the nuclei from working with Ancient technology. "How long have you been here, in this city?"

Shepherd and the others looked surprised by the question. "Er, nearly 4 years. Why?"

"Nearly 4 years and you still have no idea that some species have ways around that little issue," Susan leaned against the doorframe. She didn't know how much longer she would be safe talking to them, so she was prepared to close the doors before they fired. "This place can do things you can't even begin to imagine or comprehend. You can spend the next 40 years studying this place and still have barely scratched the surface. My people had transcended the technology of this city aeons before the Ancients even designed it, and our children play with more complicated toys." Quite a few of the humans present - Shepherd and the IOA man included - looked insulted, but McKay and Carter didn't seem surprised by their statement, showing that some humans were open to the notion that another race was more better than the Ancients "Anyway, its been nice speaking to you, so….bye!"

Susan slammed the door shut, the sounds of gunfire hitting the outer shell of the TARDIS. Humans, so predictable. Disappointed by them, Susan decided to move forwards. She walked to the console and powered the console. She set the controls to take her - ironically, to Earth in the 1960s. It was her favorite era, after all. She'd enjoyed her time there and so she wanted to try to see if she could stay there, but if not it would be great for nostalgic purposes.

A few days later - Earth, 1965.

Susan sighed as she got on the bus, bogged down with shopping. She had arrived in the year 1965, so 2 years after her original stay. It was so great to see humans in this point of history as what they were compared to the people she'd left behind on a Dalek occupation torn Earth, and of the Atlantis expedition. Susan had been in the city of London for 3 days now, chilling out, going out to the clubs, watching films at the cinema David had called 'dated' and did some shopping to brighten the TARDIS. She had been trying to redecorate the time machine ever since she had left Atlantis, deleting rooms full of the Master's possessions. She had been going through them, trying to figure out what to keep and what to simply get rid of before deleting rooms, but generally she just wanted to have fun. Susan pulled her hat down and so didn't notice the two people next to her. She asked the conductor for a ticket, giving him the correct money. "Thank you," she said clearly and politely.

"S-susan? Is that you?"

Susan's neck almost snapped as she whipped around and found herself looking at Ian and Barbara. How was this possible? They looked older, well a little older since you didn't really age that much inside a TARDIS's micro universe, but that didn't matter. She estimated it had been a year for them to the three decades for her. She gaped at them. "Ian? Barbara? How-? No, wait," she looked out of the window, "I'm getting off at my stop in half an hour. We'll get off together."

The two humans couldn't do anymore than agree with Susan's terms, and they went silent despite wanting to speak more, Susan could see their curiosity clearly. When at last they got off the bus, Susan picked up her shopping bags and got off with Ian and Barbara following her off. Ian, seeing she had trouble, instantly held out his hands to take some of the bags. "Do you want to give me some of those, Susan?"

Smiling at the gallantry, Susan said, "Sure. Just leave me a few."

Ian smiled and took some of the bags. After walking down a few streets, he asked curiously, "So how is it you're in 1965 rather than the 22nd century?"

Susan had walked over to a tree, fished out her TARDIS key and before the astonished eyes of her old friends and school teachers she opened the door to the TARDIS. Ian and Barbara, remembering their first trip in her grandfather's TARDIS, instantly realised what it was. "Another TARDIS?" Barbara whispered in shock before she and Ian instantly became defensive. "You're not going to snatch us away, we've only just come home!"

Susan shrugged. "There is an appeal there, but truthfully I don't know what I plan to do with my lives at this stage. Now come in before someone gets suspicious."

Ian and Barbara were both amazed by the TARDIS. Susan had done a great deal to make her new TARDIS into a home, away from the soulless machine she had been under the Master's tenure. The desktop was a warm purple color rather than the dreary white default color many of her people favoured. Susan placed the bags she still had on a comfortable chair and took the ones Ian had taken and did the same with them.

"How did you get a TARDIS, Susan?" Ian asked, running a hand over the controls but knowing from long experience not to touch a thing on the console. Susan knew he didn't want to end up in another time or place, so she wasn't worried.

"It's a long story," Susan sighed, gesturing for the two humans to follow her to the kitchen and lounge area. After giving them something to drink and eat, Susan sat down and told them everything. She told them of how hard her new life on Earth was, how difficult it was to try to rebuild Earth following the Dalek invasion. David had been the only one who had known about where she had come from, but he'd already known after feeling her double heartbeat. While aliens had been known on Earth for some time even before the invasion, there were quite a few humans who were bitter and even spiteful to the thought of aliens after having their planet practically ripped to bits. But fortunately David was a lot more calmer and open minded, and besides Susan had helped fight off the Daleks.

Susan told them how Earth had communicated with the colonies. Earth had colonised a fairly decent chunk of their local space. Their long term plan was to go slowly into space rather than simply rush it, and they colonised a large number of worlds before the Daleks had started using cosmic rays and meteors with bacteria to begin the invasion before landing in force to truly solidify their presence. The colonies had worked hard for 10 years to liberate their homeworld from the oppression. They had heard stories of what the Daleks had done to their home thanks to shuttlecraft which had managed to escape the bombardments of the Martian and Lunar colonies - apparently the Daleks who had been so focused on Earth had only spared them the most basic of attention, they had heard of the death toll which made the aftermaths of both World Wars look mundane by comparison. It was a miracle Earth even had colonies out there, and for over 10 years they had worked long and hard to explore deeper and deeper into space to fuel their resources to build warships designed to fight the Daleks. They had never succeeded. The Daleks had always been prepared for such moves against their invasion, and they showed as little mercy in space like they did on Earth. Any survivors from the escape shuttles were captured, presumably to be dragged to Earth to the mining area in Bedfordshire or for the other industrial plants the Daleks had converted from the already existing infrastructure to plunder Earth's resources for their empire. Several of those humans who'd survived the battles in space had survived during the final days of the occupation and had told their fellow humans about the fighting. Coincidently the colonies had prepared an even bigger strike force that would attack the Dalek fleet on 2 fronts when the rebels threw off the oppression, and they returned to Earth no less than 3 days after the Daleks had simply given up the fight. The colonies worked hard with the surviving leaders on Earth - there weren't too many of them following the invasion, too many had been wiped out, and those who were lucky to live were either members of the resistance movements dotted like raisins in a fruitcake - to rebuild their homeworld.

Susan didn't gloss over how hard it was for humanity to rebuild following the invasion. The Daleks hadn't just used a massive slave workforce to turn Eartb into a massive starship, no, they had used many of the minerals present to help build their empire, and their byproducts polluted Earth. Badly. It was much, much worse than what humans were doing right now. In the 21st century the planet would enter a green phase as it became clearer to the humans that their world was in a lot of trouble, and it was helped when that stupid decision to hide the Stargate from the species in general had been lifted. With access to more greener and more powerful energy sources humanity turned away from polluting their world, and with access to other planets and solar systems where asteroids and comets were present there was no need to completely drain Earth of its resources. But when the Daleks were beaten humanity had needed to deal with a world with polluted seas, lakes, rivers, and torn up forests, radioactive cities and few survivors. The Daleks hadn't cared - to them a living planet was as unacceptable as a world with inhabitants - besides, they had plans to kill off the surviving humans anyway when Operation De-gravitate was finished, so why would they care about the damage to the planet's biosphere? They had also left behind packs of Slythers to help them scare and control the population and to quell resistance. When the Daleks were defeated the human survivors had had it bad enough with the fear of not being able to find shelter, food and water, and yet they had to wipe the Slythers out. And over time, in an act of stupidity humans were still dividing lands when they had to share.

Ian was outraged when Susan told them about the Stargate and what it allowed humans to do. "If people from the 21st century, which isn't far away, had access to such advanced technology and science, why didn't it help Earth when the Daleks came?"

"There's plenty of blame to go around. Ever since I left the 22nd century, I did some reading into Earth history of the 21st century. There was a lot of government red tape surrounding the Stargate and the people using it to leave for other planets in this galaxy and to the Pegasus galaxy. The United States government were responsible for the Stargate program before other governments got involved, and many of them were too greedy for their own good. They wanted to bury their heads in the sand when the multiple teams sent through the gate began attracting dangerous attention in the form of the Goa'uld, a race of sentient, and unbelievably arrogant parasites. They enter human bodies and take over, and enslaved races to form an empire in the Milky way. But even when the program was disclosed it was only because of human overcrowding, and even then there was still a lack of understanding, particularly involving the advanced technology," Susan said before she went on, "And even when it was made public, there were still people who foolishly continued to repeat mistakes of the past, like destroying primitive races by giving them 'help' when they'd have been more helpful if they hadn't gotten involved. But truthfully the reason why the Daleks managed to invade is they didn't simply attack Earth like an invader. They battered the planet down, remember, and watched and waited as the planet became weaker. They isolated the planet and let it get weaker while they stopped the colonies from trying to fight back. That means the Daleks must have either found Ancient or Asgard technology themselves, or they had been fighting other races for their technologies since our encounter with them on Skaro. When they arrived they probably stole human technology and used that to counter the colonies efforts."

Susan looked into her cup. "It was a hard 30 years at times," she whispered. "I enjoyed helping out, though. I enjoyed helping the survivors try to rebuild and make Earth new and livable again. Sometimes there were moments where it seemed impossible, that the pollution, the radiation and the toxic waste the Daleks left behind made it seem pointless. Every year there was a census to let us know what good had been done to repair the damage, and it took 5 years alone to clear out the radioactivity from Asia and even then it will need another hundred to make it even resemble its original self. But humans persevered. And I loved being part of that. Later I joined the Peace officers to help clear away whatever rubbish the Daleks left behind." Then she gave a little wry smile. "Then it fell apart."

"What do you mean, did other aliens invade or something?"

Susan smiled. "No. I mean personally, my marriage with David. Oh, we were still married," she added hastily when she saw their overprotective expressions, "but my biology made life unbearable."

"What do you mean?" Ian asked, eyes crinkled in confusion. Barbara nudged him to make him realise his lack of tact.

Susan sighed. This was going to be the hard part. "You know my grandfather and I aren't human. We're aliens that look human, so we don't share human biology. Our lifespans are different, too. Longer. I might look like a young girl, but believe me I'm older than a I look. So for every year I spent on Earth with David, he grew older, and I did too, but it didn't show. To make matters worse, I couldn't have children with him. Wonderful, no children in a world that needed them to help bring hope back to Earth."

Barbara came over and hugged her gently. "Susan, how is it you've left the time we left you in? How is it you've got a TARDIS, did you build it yourself?"

"No. I didn't build the TARDIS myself, Barbara. They're grown, not built. A member of my race came to Earth to steal a powerful Dalek artefact - after the invasion there were dozens of bases scattered across the planet, and it was the job of Peace Officers like myself to put an end to it to prevent needless deaths - a device which could do what alchemists on this planet have wanted to do for centuries, transform metals intro other metals. In the Dalek's case it wasn't for wealth or power, but to simply give themselves the metals they needed for their war effort. He got it, shot David…..and my grandfather-"

"The Doctor? He went back for you?" Ian interrupted in surprise, making Barbara nudge him. Susan nodded, deciding not to complicate matters by explaining how her grandfather had been a different man; regeneration was a complex subject to speak about, and Susan didn't want either Ian or Barbara confused that the old man they had travelled with was young compared to the Doctor she had briefly seen before she had been snatched away from Earth by the Master.

Susan nodded, "He and David found me, but the Master - that's the name of the Time Lord who came to Earth - shot at them, and David was hit. My grandfather-" She trailed off, hoping he was still alive.

"Time Lord?"

"What my people call ourselves," Susan said shortly. "The Master didn't know I was like him, and it was a big mistake. I managed to incapacitate him, destroy the device he had and it exploded. And I took his TARDIS, but I needed to escape quickly - I'd turned off the defence system, leaving it vulnerable for a trace for my people to find."

Barbara struggled to understand. "But when we met your grandfather he said the pair of you were separated, but here it sounds like you-" she went silent as she realised it.

"My grandfather and I fled our planet. You have to understand Barbara that our people don't get out much into the universe and anyone who does is instantly labelled as a renegade. The Time Lords' punishment for them varies, but when they're caught its an unpleasant punishment. My grandfather didn't exactly lie, but he did bend the truth. We do want to go home, but a long while into our futures. That way the punishment will be miniscule."

Ian was shaking his head. "I don't like the fact you'd be punished simply for seeing the universe, Susan-"

"How do you think we feel?" Susan interrupted sharply. "Back home the only people who are allowed to leave have to get permission, and few like it. Anyway, at least I'm here after heading to Atlantis."

Susan told them she had met the people in the 21st century who were studying the lost city of the Ancients - another story Susan needed to tell that needed to include the Asgard, the Nox, and the Furlings. Telling Ian and Barbara about the Alliance was a highlight because she genuinely respected the other three races of that alliance. When she was finished Ian had only one question. "Just how advanced were these Ancients?"

Knowing why he was asking that question Susan had little trouble giving him the answer. "On a scale from 1 to 100 they were at least 97 to my people's 100. But the Ancients had steadily developed their technology rather than having it furthered by conflicts like species today but the Ancients were more sophisticated than the Daleks. But even with Ancient and Asgard technology behind them humans in the 22nd century couldn't bring it all to bear against the invasion. I think by then they'd learnt a good deal in a short time, just not enough to really make a difference. It will take centuries before they truly understand the principles to really put it to work, but they will do it. Although the two races had left advanced technologies for your people to master, it would still take centuries to understand how it all works. That's why the Daleks managed to succeed. But the Daleks had stolen advanced technologies, they had to have done. They were patient Ian. When we revealed to them there was life beyond Skaro, the Daleks instantly prepared for war. I don't know how long separated the two meetings, it could have been a million years for all I know."

Ian and Barbara shared a look, they were still amazed by the complexities of time travel, but that was what happened when you thought in linear terms. Susan sighed. "Alright, now you've heard my story what about yours? How did you get back to the 1960s? Did my grandfather finally repair the TARDIS directional mechanism enough to get you back?"

"No. We were chased through time and space by the Daleks. They'd built a time machine like the TARDIS, and they chased us from Aridius, to Earth a few times; we landed on the Empire State building, the Mary Celeste, and a haunted house," Ian said.

"The Mary Celeste? It doesn't take much to imagine the reaction the crew had when the Daleks arrived," Susan commented.

Barbara shuddered. "That haunted house was terrifying with that replica of Count Dracula, but it was worse when Vicki got separated and had to smuggle herself onto that Dalek time machine-"

"Who's Vicki?" Susan asked curiously.

Barbara and Ian shared a look, and Susan was instantly worried. She recognised the emotion passing between them without needing to read their thoughts. Worry.

"Susan, Vicki is a teenage girl we rescued. She and her father were on a space liner en route to another planet in the 25th century, but a murderer called Bennet forced them to crash on the planet Dido, killing everyone except himself and Vicki. He then masqueraded as an alien and began to terrorise Vicki, and he slaughtered the Didonians except two."

Susan winced. "He murdered an entire race, but why?"

"Self preservation. When we arrived, the Doctor uncovered it. After his death, Vicki was on her own so the Doctor invited her into the TARDIS. He was still reeling from you being left on Earth, and he wasn't replacing you."

Susan nodded, but she wasn't the type of person to get jealous over something like that. She knew that her grandfather did have feelings of his own, and she knew her departure (forced) had been hard on him. She had always had an on off resentment towards him ever since that day when the Dalek invasion was defeated and her grandfather had told her he could take care of himself while she stayed with David. Had he really thought it would be sunshine and roses? But despite the ups and downs, it had been a good marriage. She didn't blame her grandfather for taking Vicki in and she thought it would be nice to track them down and say hello. But she knew that wasn't practical.

"I don't have anything against him for that, Barbara, in fact I'm glad he has someone like Vicki around, but tell me more about the Dalek time machine. I'm surprised they even know how to build one," Susan said. Ian and Barbara exchanged another worried look, but Ian nodded. "Well, its bigger on the inside like the TARDIS, and it was more accurate. It could track us down and keep on our tail without trouble. The Doctor examined it when we'd dealt with the Daleks on Mechanus, at first he was enthusiastic about it and how it worked but he was furious when he found out it was powered by something called taranium."

"Taranium, are you sure?" Susan asked carefully, making both teachers worried.

"Yes, but he was too busy ranting about the Daleks' carelessness to properly explain why it was such a big deal," Ian replied. "Why, what is taranium?"

"Taranium is probably the rarest mineral in the universe. It's also the only mineral out there that allows time travel," Susan said, "but it is so rare, that even to get a small chunk about the size of my little finger would be an achievement. My people used it for our early research into time travel, and it helped us push the boundaries of temporal research. But its very unstable and its effects can be unpredictable - you could have it perfectly stable and energised one minute and when you use it, it can blow up in your face. Did my grandfather tell you how much of it was used by the Daleks?"

"No, he didn't," Barbara answered.

Susan spoke to herself, "So, they mined enough taranium to power a machine that's dimensionally transcendent and can move through the vortex, but what are the effects?" She looked up at her two friends who were looking worriedly at her. "What happened to the time machine that brought you two here?"

"We destroyed it."

"Wise move. If humans got hold of time travel too early…. anyway, before you two go, I'll need to do an examination of you both to make sure there weren't any side effects."

"You think the time machine might have done something to us?" Barbara asked, terrified.

Susan simply nodded. "How did my grandfather react when you insisted on using it to get back here?" she asked, knowing that her grandfather would need to be incredibly stupid and ignorant - two things she knew he wasn't - to just let these two use such a crude time machine to get them back home.

"Not well,"Ian admitted, "he was furious we wanted to even use it at all. But he relented when Vicki persuaded him."

Susan ducked her head to hide her smirk, though she guessed it had already been seen. It was good that despite his first self's crotchety nature, he was still the same softie at heart. "There might be no ill effects, but the more power that's drained from taranium can cause some really bizarre effects on the cellular and genetic structure. It might be nothing, but I would like to be certain," she added when the colour drained from her two friends faces.

As she stood waiting in the laboratory for the results of the tests she'd just conducted on Ian and Barbara, Susan wished she'd expressed her fears more tactfully. Now it was too late. Both humans were pacing nervously around the lab waiting for the results. Ordinarily a scan like this would not take long, but Susan knew neither Ian or Barbara knew that. But she had wanted to be thorough. Finally they were finished and she scanned the Gallifreyan text. Ian and Barbara came up behind her, "What is it?"

"Are we alright?" Ian squinted at the screen as he tried to get some idea of what the words were saying.

Susan let out a breath. "The good news is both of you are healthy, so that's a start. But the bad news is the taranium has locked your body clocks. That means you'll age more slowly than the average human, so by the time you're middle aged you will still appear as you are now."

Ian shared a look with Barbara. "Then what?"

Susan sighed, "Your body clocks will eventually reassert themselves, don't ask me when, and you'll begin to age. Slowly, but definitely. You'll probably outlive many of your generation, but you will die. From the way I'm reading this, the lock will break down and when it does you'll begin to both age, though whether it will be normal ageing or accelerated, I can't say. But you'll both age and die normally, it will just take longer that's all."

"Is there anything you can do?"

Susan's hearts ached at the look on her old teacher's fearful, hopeful, pleading face. She hated having to admit the truth. "No, there's nothing I can do. My people were more focused on using taranium to focus our research efforts, and when we did try to study its cellular effects we got different results. I could try and it might age you both too fast, or it might regress you back to your childhoods."

"So what do we do?"

"Try to live fulfilling lives as you can," Susan said simply, not trying to hide her sadness. The looks on her faces, Susan was sure, they would haunt her even until the day she passed into her 12th and final regeneration. Ian and Barbara might have been nosy busybodies who'd blundered into the TARDIS when she'd been naive and foolish enough to not tone down her knowledge of higher science, but they didn't deserve this. She knew a part of them was probably celebrating they would be living longer but they knew it wouldn't be easy to hide.

"How- how do we explain?" Ian struggled to ask, and the Time Lady shook her head. "I don't know."

Ian's face twisted in anger. "Don't you dare tell me that! You're people have long lifespans, we don't even know how old you and your grandfather were when we first met. How can we live with everyone knowing we're not ageing?"

Susan's face was set. "Are you finished? Have you forgotten, I'd told you earlier that David and I had problems because of his ageing and my lack of ageing. I know how you feel. When David began getting older, I knew I'd have to mimic him just to stop myself from being noticed. I also knew I'd outlive him, and I'd be forced to live on my own. Always on the move in case someone found out about me. Aliens weren't popular on Earth after the invasion.

"I can't cure you. I can't reverse the effects," Susan paused as an idea came to her mind. "But I might be able to help."

Barbara had been standing on the sidelines, angry with both the Doctor and Susan for their knowledge of what could happen to them, but knew the blame rested with them. But she wasn't that angry with Susan. Ian was just using her as a verbal punching bag to get rid of the frustration. How long would they live, she asked herself, and she didn't like the thought of living throughout the entire 21st century and into the 22nd.

When Susan seemingly changed her mind Barbara was instantly sceptical and alert. "How? You just said you couldn't cure us," she pointed out.

The Time Lady nodded. "You're right. I can't," she said, "but I can disguise it better than I did without the resources…"

Susan instantly went to work, picking up materials and tools. Ian and Barbara watched as the Time Lady worked, not saying anything. For close to an hour she was bent over the worktable, busy and concentrating. Finally she stopped and held up when she'd made proudly. In Susan's hands were two circular devices closed in shining metal.

"What are they?"

"Perception filters, basically they work by telepathically projecting an image and superimposing it. Watch." Susan took one of the filters, clasped it in both hands, closed her eyes to concentrate. And both humans gasped when an old woman stood before them. They could see Susan in her features, which were now craggy, lined with age. "How do I look?" she croaked, and both were amazed by how old she sounded when a moment ago she'd sounded like a teenage girl with her whole life ahead.

"You look…..old," Ian said as tactfully as he could, making Susan give a hoarse cackle when Barbara nudged him again. Susan broke the spell and reverted back to her real self. She walked over to her worktable and placed the filters down on top. "If you get these mounted into a necklace and wear it like that, then it should hardly be noticeable. I'll give you a recharge unit along with two spares to be safe."

"Thanks. But what happens if one of them is damaged?"

Susan smiled at her old history teacher. "They've got a self regenerating program built in, all they need is energy. Just take good care of them, and they'll be fine."

Susan remained in London for the next few weeks., doing her level best to help Barbara and Ian find their own two feet again. The good news was in the 1960s it was much easier to buy and maintain a house, so neither of her former teachers had really needed to rent somewhere. To add to the news was that both of their families had known they'd have gone, which had taken both of them aback…..until they'd read a letter that Ian and Barbara had sent to both their families and to the school. It was a basically how they would be taking a year or so off so then they could spend time together, spinning a romantic story about hiding their relationship from the prying eyes of their friends, fellow teachers and especially nosy students. The letter had taken the school by surprise, but the headmaster was a fairly straightforward and easy going man, so while it was a bit short notice, he had kept their jobs open for as long as it took. But the weird thing was, the old headmaster had died in suspicious circumstances, and there were rumours of some sort of military activity in Shoreditch in 1963, not long after the Doctor had yanked them away from their time.

Susan realised the paradox of the letter at once and had gotten both Ian and Barbara to write letters for themselves, and she took them back through time and dropped them off.

When Susan eventually left 1965, she promised her old friends she would watch out for them both. And in the future, when Ian and Barbara had gotten married, if you looked at the maid of honour you'd find a girl with black hair and a sunny smile looking back.

The End.


	2. Chapter 2 Note

Hi everyone who read this story.

Please be aware that the sequel for this one shot has been uploaded, titled A Time Lady Regenerates.

Enjoy.


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